Woman Sushi Chef debuted in Tokyo - Japan’s Male Bastion challenged by Women

Among so many Japanese dishes that have debuted worldwide, Sushi is perhaps the most typical. You know Tempura, of course, but it's a Portuguese dish to begin with. So, Sushi is authentically Japanese just as Sumo is. Why Sushi and Sumo? Well friends, they have a lot in common, and here's why.

You visit the Kokugikan for a Sumo Tourney to watch what? Sumo, naturally, extra-sized musclemen banging at one another. They are all men, no a sight of women in the ring. So what? Hold it; hold it till I tell you why.

Go visit a sushi-bar of your choice. Not one of those rotary kinds, but a decent sushi-bar with sushi chefs serving you across the counter. Yes, that's it. That's the kind I'm talking about. Well, what do you see across the counter? Sushi chefs, naturally, those clean-shaven, crisply-cut hair, talkative men. Men, right? See any women across the counter? No, oh no, never women. Right, no sight of women serving you across the counter. That's the way a sushi-bar should be - that's "been" a commonsense.

But, now, my friends, don't be too sure. Things do change and now we've got a sushi-bar run by a woman, not bookkeeping and management alone but "doing all that " across the counter: cooking rice the sushi way, slicing fish the sushi way, shaping rice the sushi way, and serving you the sushi-bar way. Yes, that's a change, an extraordinary change in the culture of Sushi.

A Yuki Chidui, a soft-spoken young woman of 28, pioneered five years ago her all-women sushi-bar "Nadeshico-Sushi" in the heart of Tokyo. Her assistant, a former tour-bus guide stands by Yuki wearing "manga" buttons on her outfit. Yuki had endured insults and dubious questioning of her abilities; male customers would ask into her face, "Can you really all that?"

Yes, Yuki Chidui certain can. While the professional Sumo ring is still too sacred for women, quite a few women routinely participate in amateur sumo tourneys. Likewise, sushi-making is no longer male monopoly. As Sachiko Goto, principal of Tokyo Sushi Academy, puts it, "More women are accepted as sushi chefs, more so abroad than in Japan." Well, things do change, and so fast, too.